Talk:Gunner/@comment-70.57.199.15-20130522223207/@comment-786418-20130523025814
The problem I'm having here is that you keep seeming to try to paint me as trying to force people into playing some "crazy hybrid scheme" that is "more difficult to play" when, again, all I've ever done is list a series of alternatives. Meanwhile, you are trying to say that anything but a Yerles is not worth playing. I am not trying to convince anyone to "only play the way I do", (you, however, are,) I listed three different paths. Almost definitionally, that means that I either am advocating a playstyle I don't play, or else I play more than one way. It's not a terribly sound argument to make. (You're also pretending I somehow discourage or remove any mention of using gunners as strict gunners, which is a flat denial of reality.) In fact, your arguments aren't sound even for making a straight gunner build, which is honestly leading me to believe you don't particularly understand the mechanics I'm referencing. You're talking about a few points of firearm skill as if it provides some overwhelming and obvious advantage, when it just doesn't do so, and other builds have functionally no loss of direct power for a significant gain in versatility and, yes, even power in the clutch when you need it, due to advantages like learning Magic Device or being able to cast Mist of Frailness. Meanwhile, while you lionize firearm as a skill, you trivialize it when I point out that alternative choices actually have advantages in gun-related attributes, such as a Lich or Juere having better Perception as "only a few points", saying that a few points are easily made up. The problem with that, aside from the hypocrisy, is that the statrting bonus to attributes isn't just the attributes you start with, but their potential, and attribute potential is significantly more rare and valuable than skill potential. Simply put, those perception points are just plain more valuable than the firearm points. The Dexterity bonus on the Juere (which is basically 50% more dexterity and its potential,) means that a Juere has a significant advantage over a Yerles in ranged combat. You talk about a Yerles having the capacity to slaughter low-level enemies when they get decent equipment, but really, that again makes me question if you've ever played anything else. You can slaughter low-level enemies with a level 1 snail tourist with good equipment. The difference in picking a Yerles or not in terms of firearms skill is honestly not that notable at the levels we are talking about. It's only a few percentage points of hit chance, and the difference in damage is lost in the rounding. In fact, the argument for the Fairy is that the Fairy is unstoppable once they get "good equipment". The Fairy has more Dexterity and Perception than the Yerles, a permanent dodge bonus that is massive and powerful, massive resistances for holding off mages, and better starting skills than a Yerles, to boot. The only weakness to a fairy is the difficulty of surviving to the point of getting "good equipment". Arguing that Yerles are better once they get good equipment is a self-defeating argument, since the Yerles pales in comparison to the very thing you are trying to bash on that measure. Comparatively, the difference in whether you have the lock picking skill at all or not is notable. When I contrast the archer and the gunner, I am looking at the fact that the gunner has 8 skills, of which, only 2 are actually related to guns. I am talking about the other six skills they have. You can't seem to notice anything but the weapon skill. The sheer fact that you somehow seem to concieve of taking the skill Magic Device as somehow making a hybrid class tells me that you have, perhaps, limited yourself a little too much in your playstyle to talk about other people's choices. You also don't seem to understand how platinum works, since you seem to believe that you don't pay compounding costs per skill. Having to buy an extra skill costs 3 more platinum per skill you will ever buy. Essentially, it only costs you 15 platinum if you will only buy one skill ever. If you will buy 10 other skills, it will cost you 45 platinum. I'm also not talking about just one skill in most of the cases - if you want to go into casting, taking the Elea choice is worth three skills. To do the math, assuming you're going to take an arbitrary 10 other skills, that's saving a total of 144 platinum in exchange for giving up on a few skill ranks of firearm that can easily be made up fairly quickly with around 9 or 12 platinum. There's an overwhelming advantage to gaining your skills by race rather than buying them at a trainer if you are going to take a wider range of skills. That isn't just my personal opinion, here. I'm basing this on the math the game relies upon. However, you are building up a consistant pattern of just flatly ignoring any facts or reasoning which doesn't have a conclusion you like. But that is still missing my main point, especially with the Lich example... The point of the Lich example isn't that the Lich is a better straight gunner, but that you can take these alternatives with no significant loss of power in the short term, and have a significant gain of power in the long term, while potentially playing a much more satisfying game provided the player doesn't want to play a strict f-key-only gunner. Which brings me around to why your "directions to the library" metaphor is completely invalid: You can narrow the quesiton of how to get to a library down to a single, simple methodology of comparison - time it takes to get there. You can't compare character builds in this game that way. You might say that a strict gunner is more powerful than my "hybrid" gunner that has skills besides just firearm... and you'd be wrong, because I'd have either artifact equipment you don't have from crafting or gathering skills, and/or I'd have magic, and/or I'd have extra pets, and/or some other advantage. "Power" in Elona is such a multi-dimensional beast that you can't so easily narrow it down to just one measurement... and for that matter, why is "power" even the measurement we are using? Shouldn't it be "enjoyable"? And yes, what play style you, personally, find enjoyable is an opinion. The problem is that you don't seem to respect anyone else's opinion. You think your opinion is the only one that should get the top honors, when even other players who align more towards gunners are going to have different builds than you will. And I want to stress this part, some of the things I have suggested, I don't play, myself. I'm suggesting some things that I've heard from other people are good ideas. These aren't just my opinions, they're several people's opinions. You are treating this as if it's some mandatory enforcement of just one playstyle, when it's not something I have done. As for the way that the other classes don't have this sort of discussion - the length that this article has balooned to just because of trying to contain all arguments from all sides to be peacable aside - it's because this sort of discussion is mostly contained in the race articles, not the class articles. Just look at the fairy article, which does go out suggesting a fairy pianist. (And of course, if it's a problem that these discussions aren't in the other class articles, then that can just be fixed... simply because it's been mostly written in the race articles and not the class articles before doesn't mean there's any reason not to give reasonable advice in the class articles, as well.) Playing a gunner that has Cooking or Alchemy or Magic Device isn't a strange playstyle or a hybrid playstyle, it's a normal playstyle. You aren't going to get far in this game without using at least rods for magic and most players are going to want to take at least some skills like mining or gardening or lock picking for the purpose of the additional equipment or bonuses they gain from it. Again, it's going to be a singificantly harder slog to make up for that perception gap if you have no methods of actually improving your attribute potentials. Sure, you can try to take Mani for a Perception bonus to make up for that gap, but that's just pretending that a lich gunner won't make a deity choice. What happens when that lich chooses Lulwy and gets both a perception and a speed bonus, or Kumiromi, and gets a stamina regen, dexterity, and perception bonus, as well as herb seeds and gardening bonuses that give the lich the ability to harvest large quantities of attribute-potential boosting herbs? The gap grows wider... So, no, you aren't championing either an "easier" way to play, because the way you play is actually much more limited and actually significantly harder past the first hour or two, nor is it a "standard" way to play, since almost nobody plays the way you are suggesting. The basis of essentially all your arguments are faulty, and the rest are overwhelmed by the weight of the counterpoints.